Chapter 4483: Blackest Night (18)

Schiller straightened his coat and walked out of the laboratory. Jenna lowered her voice and asked, "So who is it?"

"An old rival from the early years; when you came to Cat Getan, he was already dead. Hugo Strange, the original director of Arkham Asylum."

"Your defeated opponent?"

"You could say that." Schiller shook his head and said, "He's the type who only knows how to answer psychology questions on a psychology test."

"...... And you?"

"At that time, I was the supervillain Scarecrow."

The group drove to Cat Getan's original central roundabout. The traffic situation here had improved greatly, but it was still the most central location in Cat Getan.

Victor set up the equipment at the fastest speed. Brainiac hadn't even had time to evaluate it when a burst of ice vapor shot into the sky. Very magically, no one felt cold, only a very weak airflow swept past. Then, a thin film spread out in the air until it became a hemispherical protective shield, covering the sky over Cat Getan.

"This doesn't look like ice at all." Jenna exclaimed, "It looks more like magic, like a shield in those cartoons."

"It wasn't ice to begin with," Nora explained, "The scientific name for dense ice is 'Static Atomic Energy-Blocking Barrier'."

"What?" Jenna didn't understand for a moment, but she knew these professional terms were much more advanced than ice, so she asked with wide eyes.

"Victor invented dense ice over a dozen years ago. With his technical level, do you think these dozen years were enough for him to turn this into something else?" Schiller asked.

"The original dense ice only insulated heat in a general sense, that is, insulated most heat exchange, barely qualifying as ice. But now, this is more similar to an atomic manipulation technology, allowing atoms in a certain area to reach a kind of equilibrium. Victor calls it 'stasis'. This allows the atoms inside and outside it not to react with the atoms in this area, achieving the effect of completely isolating energy."

"Sounds very powerful," Jenna said, "So he shouldn't be called Mr. Freeze, but should be called Atomic Man?"

"Atomic Man has another nickname." Schiller said.

"What?"

"God."

Nora shook her head and explained, "Victor certainly can't completely manipulate atoms, otherwise he would be no different from God. He can only allow atoms in an area to slow down their movement, or even remain relatively stationary. But this is already very powerful. Who would have thought that he initially just wanted to break absolute zero and create the most perfect ice in the world?"

After the dense ice barrier was deployed, the temperature in Cat Getan stopped dropping and finally stopped at around minus 10 degrees. This temperature was already very low, but still bearable. Especially since Cat Getan was an old industrial city and didn't lack thermal energy.

But obviously, other cities weren't so lucky. The sun didn't rise, which had already begun to trigger large-scale panic. The rapidly dropping temperature that followed triggered riots.

"I need a large amount of raw materials," Victor said, "It seems that if I don't freeze the whole Earth, it won't work. God bless, I won't make the headlines of the 21st-century terrorist list."

Although he said this, he quickly returned to the laboratory and began to study. Freezing Cat Getan had experience, but freezing the Earth didn't. There were too many things that needed to be confirmed.

The good news was that raw materials didn't need to be worried about; Brainiac could mobilize global production lines, and they could be prepared in as fast as two hours. And now the surface temperature was basically dropping at a rate of 5 degrees per hour, dropping about 10 degrees in two hours, which was completely acceptable.

The biggest problem was the gravity problem. After the sun decayed into a black dwarf, it wasn't that there was no gravity at all, but obviously, the gravity would be greatly reduced and would gradually stop moving. But currently, there were no problems with the orbits within the solar system; the Justice League must have exerted their power.

After all, such a big thing had happened, they couldn't just do nothing. Whether it was the dark power possessed by Bruce or the Green Lantern energy, both could adjust planetary orbits. The speed at which the solar system operated in the universe might slow down, but it wouldn't stop completely, and there wouldn't be any major chaos due to gravity problems.

Of course, it wasn't impossible to use these two energies to wrap the Earth and insulate heat exchange, but the biggest problem was that the people on this Earth hadn't experienced magical baptism. Whether covering the globe with this energy would lead to mutations or trigger problems, no one could guarantee. Especially that dark power; even Barbatos wouldn't dare to mess with the Earth like this.

Fortunately, Cat Getan's talent reserve showed its advantages at this time. Victor's research on dense ice had reached perfection, and his use of it was also handy and superb. First, get the base camp Cat Getan done, and then start freezing the Earth. As long as the temperature could be stabilized at a level where humans could barely survive, the problem wouldn't be too big.

And another trouble to solve was the issue of plant photosynthesis. If plants couldn't photosynthesize and withered, the food chain would soon collapse. This would also cause irreversible damage to the Earth. Obviously, this had to rely on Pamela's Green.

Usually, plants could only obtain energy through photosynthesis. But if the Green took action, it wouldn't be impossible to use plant power to hold on for a while. When Schiller called, Pamela didn't answer; she must have been negotiating with the Green. Schiller wasn't worried about failure, because obviously, dark power and Green Lantern energy, while not good for messing with the Earth, could still be used to deal with these mysterious existences.

And the problem of Clark's energy not being replenished. Kryptonians like Clark and Kara indeed had no superpowers without the energy of the yellow sun. But H'el wasn't.

H'el was Superman when he was on Krypton. That is to say, the red sun and yellow sun made no difference to him. He was a super-powered individual to begin with, and he was strong even without sunbathing. He didn't act as Superman usually because there was already a Superman. But if there was no Superman, then the other side would be greeted by a more powerful Superman.

Clark's weakness was Kryptonite; H'el's weakness was having no weaknesses. In addition, he was gifted with mind-reading, teleportation, transformation, time travel, and other abilities that Superman didn't have.

It could be said that all the good karma this universe had accumulated in the past had borne good fruit today. If Nora hadn't been saved so quickly, Mr. Freeze wouldn't have been able to develop such powerful atomic manipulation technology, and there wouldn't have been the ability to freeze the Earth. If Brainiac had been destroyed or driven away, then resource allocation would also be a big problem; a clever woman couldn't cook without rice. If Bruce hadn't broken free from the identity of Batman, he wouldn't have been able to actively contact Barbatos and obtain dark power. If Hal hadn't become the Emerald Prince who said what he meant, there wouldn't have been so much Green Lantern energy for him to use to regulate orbits. If H'el hadn't been left on Earth and joined the Kent family, he wouldn't have been able to stand up in place of Superman. Even if those madmen in Arkham Asylum and all the potential madmen among Gothamites hadn't been properly settled, when the night descended, it would have been the end of this city.

And it was precisely because these things were solved invisibly that Schiller didn't need to run around and only needed to be an armchair detective in his office. His main goal now was to find the hidden Hugo Strange.

If nothing went wrong, this guy's first target was himself, and the second target should be Arkham Asylum. He had already gone there to warn Brand and had properly arranged for Edward. It would be difficult for Hugo to find a breakthrough from there. Then he should still come to deal with himself.

Schiller stared at the blank wall in a daze. After a while, he stood up, took out his phone, dialed a number, and then said, "Hello, Wei Lun? What are you doing? Helping move goods? Do you have time? I have something I'd like to ask for your help with."

Half an hour later, Mrs. Ederson stood at the door of Schiller's office, staring at that large piece of felt board in shock: "My God, Professor Rodriguez, are you going to hold a thesis exhibition here?"

Schiller directed Wei Lun to nail the felt board to the blank wall, turned back and said, "I just need to nail some clues and evidence to clear my thoughts."

"You don't look like someone who needs evidence, sir." Mrs. Ederson said, "But I still hope this can be useful, don't let there be another little Chick."

After nailing it, Wei Lun patted his big claws and said, "Alright, Professor, how does this look?"

Schiller stepped back a few steps to look, nodded and said, "Not bad, thank you for your hard work. How have you been lately?"

"Not bad, just that I can't adapt to the cold environment." Wei Lun wrapped himself in three layers inside and three layers outside. His figure was already very tall and big, and wrapping himself in so many clothes, he had completely turned into a giant ball. He sighed and said, "I'm a cold-blooded animal, minus ten degrees is still too cold for me."

"Then go back and rest," Schiller said. "Hibernation is also fine. Maybe when you wake up, it will be bright."

Wei Lun grinned: "That won't do. The worse the weather, the more overtime compensation there is. I'm busy making money."

Schiller watched Wei Lun leave, returned to his office, looked at the felt board, and then began to nail things onto it. After he had nailed the whole felt board full, he turned and left the office, walking toward the Cryogenics Laboratory.

"Why are you here again?!" Victor poked his head out from behind the experimental bench, "Mrs. Brainiac! Kick him out!"

"Due to your incorrect address of me, I cannot do so." Brainiac said.

Victor rolled his eyes: "If you don't dare, just say you don't dare, what excuse are you looking for."

"This is very important; if the Super-Body heard it, she might incorrectly judge my marital status..."

"I wasn't really feeling irritable. In fact, this reminds me of the days when Nora hadn't woken up yet, I was also staying in the laboratory with Schiller like this. At that time, the equipment was far less advanced than it is now, and it was very troublesome to set up. But I still enjoyed it. Schiller was as poisonous-tongued as ever, always pointing out the real thoughts hidden in my words while writing papers and lesson plans, which is actually no different from now. Perhaps I should have been interrupted by him, but in fact, I've already gotten used to it. This makes me feel not lonely. Although I'm not lonely now, reliving old dreams is always beautiful..."

"Schiller! I didn't think that!" Victor roared, "I didn't use my own pen to beautify myself like this! Do you still want your face?!"

"Although I pretended to be angry from embarrassment, it was actually just to cover up the shock brought by Schiller guessing my thoughts once again, perhaps there was also a bit of shyness, because he knew once again that I was actually admiring his insights..."

"OH!! GOD!!!"

?? Some people say arrogance is less aggressive now, actually it's just that there's no stage. ===== CHAPTER 4484 =====